SACRAMENTO, CA -- The results are in from the 1998 state-by-state fourth- and eighth-grade reading scores
on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test. To no one’s surprise, California students
once again performed at dismally low levels.

The NAEP exam has four different performance levels: advanced, proficient, basic and below basic. A full 52
percent of California fourth-graders, read "below basic," meaning that they failed to even partially
master fundamental skills. Overall, the average score of California fourth-graders ranked only above Hawaii
and the District of Columbia. The picture is even worse when the scores are broken down by race.

The average scores of California’s black and Latino students ranked significantly below those of white and
Asian students. Some in the education establishment have tried to blame the state’s low overall average
scores on the poor performance of California’s sizable black and Latino student population. The unsubtle
message: black and Latino students are not as smart as whites and Asians, therefore the state’s racial
diversity has a detrimental effect on student performance. That line of reasoning fails for two important reasons.

First, the average scores of whites, Asians, blacks and Latinos in California are below the national average
for each racial group. In other words, California’s public education system has poorly served all groups of
students, not just blacks and Latinos.

Second, Texas, which resembles California demographically, was ranked significantly higher than California and above the national average. Gary Hart, Gov. Davis’ education secretary, says: "The reason Texas is doing so much better, even with some of the same demographic issues faced in California, is that Texas has had a strong accountability system in place over the years."

Secretary Hart is right, Texas does have a relatively strong accountability system. While the Texas system
does contain incentives for schools to perform better, the key is that there are real sanctions in Texas’
system. For example, teacher colleges that graduate too many teachers who fail competency exams lose their
accreditation. More important, Texas, which is a right-to-work state, can fire incompetent teachers and
administrators for poor performance. Entire staffs at low-quality schools have lost their jobs. Unfortunately, Gov. Davis’ accountability proposal lacks that kind of teeth.

For instance, poor performing teachers will never be fired under Davis’ plan. Sacramento Bee columnist Peter Schrag characterizes Davis’ education proposals as "Potemkin Village school reform bills." Rather than
empty-shell proposals, Schrag wonders why opportunity scholarships (vouchers) shouldn’t be tried: "But surely
‘scholarship’ formulas can be written that would allow low-income students to escape our soon-to-be-officially-recognized rotten schools -- formulas that would be fair, and that would cost the state very little."

The NAEP scores prove what we have known for some time, that there are too many rotten public schools in
California. The Pacific Research Institute believes that a real accountability system must include school
choice. Allowing parents and their children to vote with their feet is the best sanction and incentive for
public schools to do better.

-- Lance T. Izumi